When goose hunter Neal Brooks says you’re in for a cold, early morning, he means every word of it. For hunters and sportsmen like Brooks, the relationship to guns and shooting is often part family tradition, part politics and part fun.

Quvenzhane Wallis was just 5 years old when she auditioned for a role in the Oscar-nominated film Beasts of the Southern Wild, and 6 when she shot the movie. Now, at age 9, she is the youngest ever to receive a best actress Oscar nomination.

Illinois residents saved up to 218 million dollars on their electric bills last year thanks to competition in the market. However, that is expected to shift this summer, and a consumer watchdog group is voicing its early concerns.

"I just got the phone call one day," is how poet Richard Blanco describes to Fresh Air's Terry Gross how he learned he had been selected to write and read the inaugural poem for President Obama's second swearing-in on Jan. 21.